How The White Sox Can Repeat Their Success in 2022
The 2021 Season came with big expectations for the Chicago White Sox, after being eliminated in the AL Wildcard Series in 2020 by the Oakland A’s in 3 games. The shortened 2020 season, had the White Sox finish 2nd in the AL Central behind the Indians with a 35-25 record. 2020 came as a bit of a surprise since Chicago had finished 4th for the past 5 seasons (2014-2018). The White Sox saw 1B Jose Abreu win the AL MVP award & was one of the primary reasons Chicago was propelled into a postseason appearance along with Lucas Giolito, Dallas Keuchel & Tim Anderson. Despite the surprising success in 2020, the White Sox shifted their focus & fired Manager Rick Renteria along with some power shifting transactions.
Coming Up Short in 2021
How Do They Bounce Back??
What to Look Forward to in 2022
If 2021 is any indication of what the White Sox are capable of then 2022 will be exciting for fans to hopefully see some postseason success. The AL Central will likely be one sided again as it was in 2020 & 2021 as Detroit, Cleveland & Kansas City are still in that “Rebuild” mode. To many skeptics, the “weak” division is their reasoning to Chicago’s success but you cannot discredit the amount of talent this team has to pair with a Legendary Manager to help potentially aid in a deep postseason run. Extending Lance Lynn during the 2021 regular season helps give the White Sox many different options to go for this winter as Kimbrel (team option), Carlos Rodon & Cesar Hernandez are the most notable players that could depart this winter.
So if there are any expectations for the White Sox in 2022, it has to be that this Winter could see the Chicago front-office spending some big time $$$, being that they are ranked 7th in payroll. There aren’t many holes to fill with this White Sox team though there will be be some tough decisions to make. It should go without saying that they will likely win the AL Central again next year & if their 2021 totals are any indicator of what they’re capable of, they could very well be the best team in the AL if not all of baseball.
References:
BaseballReference
Jeff Passan via Twitter
Spotrac
MLB.com
CNBC
ABCNews